Censorship (add another ‘p’ to drop)!

It is not censorship per se, but
the empty headed way it is
imposed. And empty heads
resound with vacant sound. If we

invite restrictions through a rule
of overuse for words of grosser
choice, but only two – so far, mind
you, it seems a censorship without

a rule of sense – a farce. But that
we have a choice of every other
word extant extends bizarre relief;
perhaps we are supposed to be the

censors of ourselves? Do I hear a
chorus of complaints from poets
now incensed by rules that can’t
defend the innocence of readers

grazing in our fields – the prey of
dirty words, the victims of a foul
intent? But better any day than real
complaint you’ll say. There’s irony

in that defence; it means instead
of censorship reacting to offensive
words the minders of the site will
institute a search machine, a dumb

program to poll our words and
cull those gems, the ‘fu.ks’ and
‘cu.ts’ which salt and spice a line,
the naughty words we use from

time to time – when time is right.
And there is nothing there to say
it can’t or won’t excise all words
of darker parentage it knows, or

was programmed to find by minders
with a mind to ban, and still find time
to stop to crop a colon or parenthesis,
and add another ‘p’ to drop!
© 16 May 2007, I.D. Carswell